Tuesday, October 22, 2013

What's more fun that "hands-on" math? Add some green fingers, and your students' motivation to do math will skyrocket.

I purchased my fingers at Party City. We have one in my home town, but you can also order them online at www.partycity.com for 10 fingers for $1.99. I also found them at my local Dollar Tree store. Since I use them throughout the year as reading pointers, it is an added incentive for buying more:-)

Place the fingers in a math center along with a deck of cards. Remove the Queen, King, and Joker cards. The Ace can be used as a 1 and the Jack can be used as a 10. I write those numbers on the cards to help the students. Player 1 turns over a card and reads the number. Player 2 puts that many witches fingers on their fingers. Player one tells how many more are needed to make a 10. For example, player 1 turns over a 5. Player 2 puts on 5 fingers. Player 1 has to count how many more fingers are needed to make a 10. This game can also be used for subtraction. Player 1 puts on all 10 fingers. Player 2 draws a card and reads the number. Player 2 takes that many fingers off of player 1. Player 1 tells how many fingers are left. Students can record their results in a math journal using pictures, symbols, and/or equations depending on their level.

I made an activity to go with the fun which includes Spooky Finger 10 Frames and paper finger manipulatives in case you don't have any of the fingers or need some extra. You can find it HERE.

There are 64 story problems to use in math centers along with Spooky 10 Frame Cards.

Let your students work on reading and math skills at the same time. These rebus supported cards will provide your students support to complete their own book. All numbers working within 10 are included in the the Making 10 Book and all numbers working within 5 are included in the Making 5 Book. Pick the book that suits your students' individual needs.

Friday, October 4, 2013

Inventions are born out of necessity or maybe out of frustration and clutter. As a teacher you can probably get a good visual when I describe this scenario. I was in my living room creating a new project working with 5 and 10 frames to help one of my friends who teaches first grade. I spent many hours creating it, printing it, and wait for it - laminating and cutting it too. So there I was sitting in the middle of the floor with laminating strips, scissors, and center pieces everywhere. Teaching and creating is such a messy job sometimes, isn't it? How many of you have a dining room table that does not have teaching materials on it? It's Friday. How many of you brought home a teacher's bag full of things to make or do over the weekend? OK- back to my story.

My friend dropped by to pick up what I had made for her before I had it all sorted into centers. Enter my friend: Picture all of the apple games, books, literacy centers, apple math cards, apple ten frames, and apple math centers on the floor, couch, chairs, coffee table . . . Are you getting the visual? It was a sea of red, yellow, and green all over the floor. Now if you have a partner in crime that shares your passion of creating fun hands on activities for kiddos, then it is ok for that teacher to walk in and see the mess. Whew, I'm sure glad it was Stacee. She stepped over all of the mess, and we got to work planning for her students. When she left, I looked around at the remnants that were left, and an idea just hit me. I found a way to make 5 & 10 frames that would flip over so there is no need for all of the pieces. I made 5 in the color version for math stations and 5 for small group. They come in both 5 & 10 frames so I can different according to a student's or group's needs. Here is the end product.

Once I made the apple ones I just kept going through the themes, holidays, and autumn season. I even went back to the first of the year. Now I have 5 & 10 frame cards for all of the themes for the first semester of school ready to go and stacked neatly with a rubber band wrapped around each set. They can be stored in a large baggie or in a small tub. And you can print the black & white versions for each student in your class to manipulate during whole group time. Picture everyone participating in the hands on learning. Think of all the math language and discussion as they compare their frames.

Here is a picture of the sample frames in my new packet on Teachers Pay Teachers. It has 590 pages in it! That is my biggest packet so far! I put in at a discount price through this weekend. CLICK HERE to see it on TpT.

Choose from these pictures for the Give-a-Way at the bottom of the blog.

If you made it this far down to the end of my long post, then here is the exciting news! I am giving 2 away here along with 2 more on my Face Book page (Click Here). I had my daughter choose one of the pictures (themes) from the sample shown above. Here is how you can enter. Follow my blog and/or my Face Book page. Then leave your guess as to which theme picture my daughter chose as the secret winner. Also leave your email address. This is a HUGE file, so it might be best to leave an email that would not be blocked. Some school email addresses block large files. You may make one guess on my blog and one on my Face Book page. Good luck! I will notify the winners as soon as the secret pictures are named. So which picture do you think my daughter picked? An animal? A holiday pic? Another theme? Shhhh . . . it's a secret!